Merry Christmas everyone! I haven't really reviewed any Christmas movies bar one (if that one even counts) and it's much to late to turn back now. This film is still kinda topical though since it came out in 2010 and has Toby Kebbell in it and eh...I don't like Nic Cage, I just wanted a bit of escapism after all the depressing cinema I've watched over the last couple of days. Enjoy!
So the story is all about Nic Cage searching the world for a little boy to do magic with. Yeah, this is probably what Nic Cage does in real life as well. Oh yeah there's some stuff about like a prison with evil Sorcerers in it that wanna raise any army of the dead or something... but you know, unimportant!
I really don't like Nic Cage, however films like this do suit Nicolas Cage's craziness slightly better than films like City of Angels do. Like he's a shit actor, but I rather liked his performance here much like I did in the great fun Drive Angry. Plus the child actor who plays Dave isn't actually all that bad, as far as child actors go at least. Sadly after fifteen minutes we jump to ten years later and to a much shittier lead actor, great.
The character of Dave himself though is really well written if not particularly well acted. Often in fantasy stories everyday people are exposed to magical things and they just kinda...shrug. I understand that this is normally done so they can just get on with the story and stuff but Dave's reactions for the most part feel realistic, without the film ever screeching to a halt to do so. The same can't be said for the brilliant Toby Kebbell who is really just a bit shit in this film.
In terms of tone, the film can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a full fledged fantasy movie or just a kids one. So you get scenes of massacres and talks of death and a really rather brutal and nasty main villain and then entire scenes of children on a school trip or goofy kid friendly jokes... And it seems the only thing holding together the two halves of the film is contrivances.
What the film does have good aside from special effects action sequences is a rather kick ass soundtrack. And since I very rarely ever talk about music, you know a film is bad when that is one of the only positives I can find.
For any science geeks, the logic of the powers in this movie will probably make you cry. I personally was grateful they even bothered to try and make explanations for the powers and went into detail about certain techniques. Fantasy like this too often just uses the excuse 'well it was magic' - this really uses the excuse 'well magic is science'. Interesting if not exactly ground breaking for this genre.
What I was disappointed by is with the way the Grimhold was introduced, I expected it to be full of dozens, if not hundreds of evil sorcerers and I knew there'd be no time to fit them all in, I expected at least a series of imaginative villains and sequences like the dragon sequence towards the beginning. Instead there are only three people locked in the Grimhold along with Morgana le Fay (well four if we include Veronica) and one of those three is barely in the film. I can't help but feel that this movie could have worked so much better as a TV show, dedicating each episode to Dave's training and taking down a new sorcerer released from the Grimhold, I understand the action couldn't be quite as spectacular but as a film this story feels very rushed as they try to fit in as much action and story as they physically can.
Really though despite everything I have said so far, this movie is actually pretty awesome. I mean sure the acting and story are balls, but not only is the action good and the effects also, the escapist action sequences are just really imaginative and the characters are really cool. Even if the fight with Morgana is a little anti climactic. It is like a comic book come to life, bad writing and all.
And so yeah this movie is just good plain fun, it's stupid enough to make your brain melt but every now and then it's nice to just have something fun. Especially when the other day I was watching the ultra heavy Tyrannosaur. To be fair, even the goofy child comedy isn't always miss, I mean sure most of the time it is, especially with how poorly integrated it is. But scenes like the 'old man shoes sequence' was genuinely pretty funny. And the film even includes a Fantasia reference! Way to use the fact you're a Disney film to the max everyone! And for once I'm not saying a statement like that sarcastically.
So do I recommend it? Yeah, I really do. It's great fun, the effects are great and it's just a really fun, feel good movie. It's stupid enough to make your brain melt, but when it's this fun I find it really hard to complain.
Think About It!
-Locke
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